


Just To Stretch My Legs

by orphan_account



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Zombie AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-29
Updated: 2013-12-29
Packaged: 2018-01-06 15:26:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1108463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zombie Apocalypse AU. It looks like him, talks like him; it has to be him. After all, what zombie talks like a real person?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just To Stretch My Legs

**Author's Note:**

> Extremely belated Merry Christmas, Marco~~~ :3

The campfire was smouledering down to the embers when Jean returned, his footsteps barely audible, muffled by cloth as they were. Zombie activity decreased in the night, and although it was strange, Jean’s group wasn’t going to risk their neck looking for answers. Survival was enough. 

He frowned, squinting through the meager light at the figure sitting on the log before heaving a sigh of relief. The profile was familiar and he relaxed as he passed the various traps, careful to avoid the still-twitching zombies stuck in them.

“Hello there the camp. You’re still awake?” he called out, voice low.

It was a stupid question, to tell the truth. Sleep wasn’t really necessary for the boy, not anymore.

Said boy spoke, turning slightly to look at the blonde. “Jean, you’re back?” He sounded so surprised, so _human_. A gentle smile broke across the dark-haired boy’s features, twisting strangely where the flesh ended and bone began. “Where did you go?”

_Zombies aren’t people, Jean. You know that._

“Yeah.” Jean shook his head to clear it, trying to bury Connie’s voice. It was futile, but he soldiered through the motions anyways. “Yeah, I went to get food.”

He held up a bag of meat from some poor stray cat and a couple of dead birds swinging trussed up from his wrist. Rooklings; easy to take down since they lacked flight.

It was hard to miss the way the boy shied away from the blood dripping from where he’d slit the bird’s throats, a flicker of revulsion flashing across the visible side of his face. “That’s…that’s good? Wouldn’t want you guys to go hungry after all,” the freckled boy said, lightheartedly. “Thank god for Sasha.” The words echoed in Jean’s mind: you guys; you; not _him_. 

_What about that boy we met before, Eren?_

_He’s under control, according to Armin._

Jean remembered snorting at the statement, arms spread wide, eyes beseeching.

_What makes_ this _any different,_ he’d asked the boy, _tell me, Connie.  
_

_He’s been_ eaten _Jean. You can see his brain, or what’s left of it through that hole in his head._

Even in the unreliable light of the campfire, the wound was easy enough to see. A great chunk out of the side of his face, half of a shoulder gone, tiny edges of white jutting out from where flesh ended.

_It doesn’t make him any less of himself._

He’d sounded so sure back then, still elated from his find, but it was hard at times, hard to believe it. Still, there weren’t any zombies around that could speak, right? That could _remember?_ The boy had to be a miracle or something, some exception to the rule. If there was anyone in the world that could manage it, it was probably Marco.

Connie hadn’t taken his word so easily, shaking his bald head in…pity? Sorrow? Regret? _I’ve seen the way he looks at us sometimes; Marco the Man might not want to eat you, but Marco the Zombie certainly does._

Jean had leaned forward, grabbing his friend by the shoulders. The boy had shied away, a habit cultivated from the world they lived in, but Jean had ignored it.

_Connie. Connie listen. It’s going to be alright, alright?_

_…The first sign of anything and I’m putting my best spade through his head, got it? I’m sure Sasha agrees._

The suspicion was terrible in his voice, and Jean had turned away then. Looking at Sasha, it was clear that the girl shaking from fear. Out of them all, she hated zombies the most, feared them the most. He didn’t blame her; when the disease struck she had been in the red zone with her family, and even now he didn’t know how she’s survived.

_Sasha?_

_…Life’s more important than your pet, Jean, even if it happens to look like Marco._

“—ean? Jean?” Someone calling his name broke through his reverie, and he stood up straighter, shaking his head to clear the fog; it seemed to be common lately, the inability to focus. Insomnia was taking it’s toll on them all.

“Oh, sorry. I was just thinking.”

“Hum…Anyways, I don’t suppose you could take this off, could you? It itches.” Marco tugged at something around his neck, the band glinting in the light, and Jean’s eyes focused on the other reminder of Marco’s state, as if the face weren’t enough already.

It was a simple enough collar, practical, and commonly used for the more violent dogs. Around Marco’s neck, it was an obscenity, vile.

“…Connie wouldn’t like it.”

“Connie doesn’t need to know. Since when is _he_ the leader of our merry band?” The words were exactly what he wanted to hear, fitting seamlessly into Jean’s own thoughts. _Connie doesn’t need to know_. And if his friend were sane, it wouldn’t matter right? It shouldn’t.

“Marco. Please.” What was he even pleading for?

“C’mon Jean, just for a moment? Just to stretch my legs, that’s all.” A corpse doesn’t get any stiffer, Sasha would joke, hand straying subconsciously to the ever-present rifle at her back.

“I…"

“Please?”

No matter what he did, he would be damned. He _was_ damned, anyway. His voice shook as he spoke, and the corpse’s eyes widened, the emotion unreadable.

God, he hoped he was right.


End file.
